In the land of Sheila Dikshit

Fate has a funny way in intervening in the destinies of men and women. Question is, do men and women have the nerve to shape their own destinies? Forty-eight hours before campaigning ends in Delhi, for elections that will take place on December 4, travelling on the campaign trail with chief minister Sheila Dikshit is a lesson in patience and political skill.

The lady is 74 years old, 15 of which have already been spent at the helm in Delhi, but she prepares for the day with the meticulousness of someone who must always be ready for the long haul. The attention to detail is interesting – sneakers, handloom silk sari and shawl, her grey hair wrapped up in a thin bun on the back of her head – and it accompanies a quiet confidence that refuses to give in to the breathless nervousness of the daily opinion poll.

“You have to understand the pulse of the people,” she tells me, during one of our long journeys on the campaign trail two days ago that took us to the resettlement colonies of Nangloi, Mundka and Kirari, adding, “you have to understand what they want, anticipate their expectations and then fulfil them.”

Nangloi’s Nihal Vihar is an urban agglomeration of shops and higgledy-piggledy houses, like hundreds of others littered across the spectrum of the city, including in beautiful colonies inhabited by People Like Us. Here the makeshift stage has been erected at the crossroads of three lanes, a highway of sorts in this inner-city urban village, now taken over by men, women and children waiting to hear what the Congress leader has to offer.

The local MLA, Dr Bijender Singh, makes his pitch : I would like the Hon’ble chief minister, over her next five years, to cover the huge drain that separates Nihal Vihar from Paschim Vihar and bridge the gap between us. He is received with a rousing cheer.

Only 15 years ago – when Dikshit came to power, upsetting the BJP-led applecart that ran the Centre in 1998 – Paschim Vihar looked like the Punjabi refugee colony that it was (refugees escaping the trauma of partition from the Pakistan side of Punjab). With its glistening malls and five star hotels, the makeover of Paschim Vihar is complete. It has now handed down the sobriquet of “developing colonies” to areas like Nihal Vihar.

According to official statistics, Delhi not only has the highest per capita income in the country, it is also the easiest place to start a business. Does Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi, who has built his reputation on being corporate-friendly, know this, a Congress leader asks me?

Clearly, one of the biggest drawbacks of UPA-2 — and Sheila Dikshit’s Delhi campaign has been directly impacted by this – has been its inability to communicate its message of good governance and development to the people. And what else is politics except trying to convince your audience that you are the best answer to all their ills ?

In the car on the campaign trail, Dikshit measures her words carefully. “Delhi knows what is good for it, Dilliwallahs know the kind of work that has been done here. Five lakh people come into Delhi every year, do they go to any other city in the country in these numbers? The truth is, Dilli ka dil bahut bara hai.”

But once she takes the rostrum at the ‘jan sabha,’ for which she has to climb on a stool so as to be seen by the crowd, the woman is transformed. Her convent-school English has given way to impeccable Hindi, always laced with a few words in Urdu. Dikshit’s credentials as the daughter-in-law of the indomitable Congress leader from the Hindi heartland, Uma Shanker Dikshit, four of whose elections she ran, make her an obvious candidate for the top leadership of the party, and chances are that if she wins Delhi for a record fourth time, she could be catapulted to the top.

For the time being, though, Delhi is her ‘karmabhoomi.’ Nangloi, Mundka and Kirari were not so long ago part of adjoining Haryana, but the ever-expanding needs of the capital city has served as a magnet to attract immigrants from other, much poorer parts of the country, transforming this area into a vast working-class.

The inhabitants wear their coat of double identity lightly, at once ‘Dilliwallah’ and “Poorvanchali,’ a reference to people from eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, said to number about 45 lakh in the city. (The BJP, in acceptance of their growing clout, has given tickets to 5 ‘Poorvanchali’ candidates in this election, while the Congress only has 1; on the other hand, the Congress has 1 ‘Yadav’ candidate, while the BJP has none. The diminishing role of caste suits Delhi’s reputation as a city that welcomes all Indians, irrespective of caste and stripe.)

Clearly, on the margins of Delhi as elsewhere in the city, the over-riding themes relate to “development” – or its absence. Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Admi Party has attempted to grab eyeballs by making corruption a big issue, even as it debunks a “doctored” CD showing some AAP candidates allegedly asking for bribes. The BJP’s chief ministerial candidate, the well-mannered Dr Harshvardhan – shown on BJP hoardings as a man in a suit and tie – has been totally overshadowed by the BJP’s big guns, including none other than Narendra Modi, Sushma Swaraj and Rajnath Singh, targeting rising costs and spiralling prices in the land of Sheila Dikshit.

Make no mistake, though, this is her city and she has put her stamp on it. That is why her speeches are more like conversations wherever she goes, much like a mother or an aunt exhorting her audience to do the right thing by the Congress.

“Aaaj main aapse vote maange aayi hoon,” she begins, appealing to those she knows are most directly affected by the improvement in Delhi’s amenities. (It is rumoured that people in posh Golf Links, in central Delhi, asked AAP’s Kejriwal to construct a swimming pool if he wins his election against Sheila Dikshit.)

Her main campaign plank is the regularisation of the unauthorised colony, the right to a patch of land that no one can take away, no MCD bulldozer can wilfully destroy, no corrupt cop can evict or threaten or demand a bribe over. “This is your maulik adkhikar,” your inalienable right, she tells the crowd, as the sun sets on another evening in Delhi.

The rest of the speech is taken over by references to the development the city has witnessed in the last 15 years – the Metro, the flyovers, the expansion of infrastructure and 24-hour electricity. As for electricity bills, Delhi has cheaper power than cities like Ahmedabad or Ghaziabad – the only indirect attacks on the BJP and the Aam Aadmi Party, she argues.

Daler Mehendi, the pop star who has sung the lyrics to the ‘nahi rukegi… meri Delhi’ campaign ad – the lyrics have been written by Prasoon Joshi – rounds up the meeting with a few lines of music. Later that evening, as Sheila Dikshit campaigns in Mundka and Kirari, Daler Mehendi warms up to his music, sending the crowds delirious.

The ‘Times of India’ reports the next morning that the crowd was mostly interested in hearing Mr Mehendi’s music rather than Sheila’s comments, but that is rather a simplistic interpretation of the carnival-like atmosphere that is always an Indian election.

Make no mistake : Sheila Dikshit is fighting for her legacy and for her claim to go down in history as the woman who fought for Delhi a record fourth time. She is looking to shape the politics of India’s capital for a long time to come.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

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Jyoti Malhotra would like to wake to the sounds of classical music, but there are the kids to get ready for school. Over the whirlwind that comprises the following 24 hours, she finds time to dream about building the Republic of Saket, re-reading Haroun and the Sea of Stories and perchance, creating a cookbook that would chart Narayani Kutty Unnikrishnan's journey from the Malabar uplands to Moscow.

Jyoti Malhotra would like to wake to the sounds of classical music, but there are the kids to get ready for school. Over the whirlwind that comprises the fo. . .